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Friday, February 05, 2016

Member of International Child Exploitation Conspiracy Sentenced to 216 Months in Prison

A Bronx, New York, man was sentenced to 216 months in prison
today for his participation in two websites that were operated for the purpose
of coercing and enticing minors as young as eight years old to engage in
sexually explicit conduct on web camera.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice
Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente of the Eastern
District of Virginia and Section Chief Calvin Shivers of the FBI’s Violent
Crimes Against Children Section (VCACS) made the announcement.

Karlo Hitosis, 32, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge T.S.
Ellis of the Eastern District of Virginia, who also ordered Hitosis to serve 10
years of supervised release.Last year,
Hitosis pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to produce child
pornography.The investigation,
Operation Subterfuge, identified more than 300 minor victims in the United
States and an estimated 1,600 minor victims were lured to the websites.

In connection with his guilty plea, Hitosis admitted that
members of the conspiracy created false profiles on social networking sites,
such as YouTube, posing as young teenagers to lure children to the websites
they controlled.Once on the
conspirators’ websites, the conspirators showed the children pre-recorded
videos of prior minor victims, often engaging in sexually explicit conduct, to
make the new victims think that they were chatting with another minor.Using these videos, the conspirators coerced
and enticed children to engage in sexually explicit activity on their own web
cameras, which the website automatically recorded.Conspirators earned points based on their
contribution to the success of website objectives, which allowed them access to
the sexually exploitative videos of children.Law enforcement agencies have disabled both websites.

VCACS special agents led the investigation with the
assistance of the FBI’s Operation Rescue Me and the FBI’s Digital Analysis and
Research Center.The South Africa Police
Service, Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offenses, Gauteng; Dutch
Police Service Agency, KLPD; Royal Canadian Mounted Police, National Child
Exploitation Coordination Centre; and the Australian Federal Police, Child
Protection Operations, Sydney were active partners in the investigation.The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern
District of New York also contributed to the investigation and the prosecution.